Concealable apparatus assemblies, which comprise a support structure supporting an apparatus and rotatably receivable in an opening of a board or of a plate so that the apparatus is accessible through said opening from a first major surface of the board or plate at a first angular position adopted by said support structure, and concealed for other angular positions adopted thereby, the support structure having or supporting a flat surface which remains flush with said first major surface of the board or plate at a second angular position adopted by said support structure, are known in the state art.
EP1182747B1 discloses one of said known assemblies, where the apparatus is at least one mains and/or data socket, particularly for computers and the telephone, and the support structure is a housing rotatably received in a recess of a tabletop. The housing has a circular cross-sectional shape with two or more flat surfaces offset from one another, and the apparatus is flush with one of the flat surfaces.
EP1182747B1 discloses the features defined in the preamble clause of claim 1 of the present invention.
The assembly discloses by EP1182747B1 has some shortcomings, which are caused by the room needed by the housing during the rotation thereof. One of said shortcomings is that said rotation makes the housing project above the tabletop recess, as shown in FIG. 4 of said patent, during the intermediate rotation positions. Another shortcoming is that for the desired housing stop positions, i.e. those when one of the flat surface is parallel to the tabletop, a surrounding gap between the tabletop contour and the housing flat surface outer contour is left, which causes the need of the mounting of a frame plate over the tabletop, modified to have a rounded recess in the lower face thereof complementary to the outer rounded profile of the housing, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 of EP118274761. Even with such a modified frame plate a small gap between the contour of the through opening of the frame plate and the housing flat surface outer contour exists, and, moreover, the flat surface of the modified frame plate does not remain at the same plane as the one occupied by the upper face of the tabletop, but slightly above it
It is, therefore, necessary to provide an alternative to the state of the art which covers the gaps found therein, by the provision of an assembly which overcomes the above mentioned shortcomings, and hence provides a perfect fitting between the flat surfaces thereof and the opening through which the assembly is received, and does not either project above said opening during intermediate rotation positions.